6 Incredible Uses Of Renewable Technology

If you’re like us here at The Greener Group, you love to find out about new interesting and innovative uses of renewable technology.

No idea is too big or too small for some people, and the possible uses of renewable technology are still relatively unexplored.
There are some fantastic projects happening all over, so we’ve decided to take a look at some of our favourites.

Solar Impulse

Solar Impulse is a project that was started by Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard with the aim to pilot an aircraft using only solar power.

The initial purpose of this project was to make the first circumnavigation of Earth using only renewable energy and spread awareness of clean technology.
The craziest part is that they actually did it.
The first aircraft, named Solar Impulse 1 made its first flight being fully powered by solar technology on 28th May 2010.

Since then, they have continued to push boundaries and further the distance and time travelled using this amazing aircraft. As you can imagine, it didn’t take long before work commenced on a second prototype.
On 9th March 2015, the pair embarked on their groundbreaking journey to try and circumnavigate the planet on the cleverly named, Solar Impulse 2.

They took off from Abu Dhabi, before travelling throughout Asia and on to Japan and Hawaii. After stops in California, Spain and Egypt, Borschberg and Piccard made it back to Abu Dhabi on 26th July 2016, making stops along the way to work on the aircraft.

This journey was a huge step in the right direction for showcasing what solar technology can do and they managed to achieve the impossible.

Imagine a world where planes were able to fly without a single drop of fuel? This could be our future.
If you’d like to find out more about this amazing project, click here.

Bathing Under The Sky

Ever wanted to enjoy a luxury spa in the great outdoors without using heaps of electricity?

Bathing Under The Sky offer their own unique outdoors experience with their brand of wood-fired hot tubs and saunas. Ditching the need for electricity, the hot tubs are heated by burning wood.

By cutting out the need for electricity, there is no loud noise coming from an engine and there is no need for an electrician to install it, reducing the cost. This essentially means that the price you pay for the hot tub is the only price you’ll pay, which is always a good thing.

The wood-burners are located underneath the water, making the heating of the water faster and more efficient and being a much more environmentally friendly option.
Hot tubs and saunas usually rely on a lot of energy to function and doing their part to reduce this is fantastic.

We’ll take two please!
More information on Bathing Under The Sky can be found here.

Straw Bale Solar Powered Showers

Following a similar suite, the next item on this list is solar powered showers, brought to you by The Sustainability Centre.

These innovative showers are made to be as green as possible, let us explain how.
They use straw as insulation because it is both cheap and renewable, as well as being very insulating. The rest of the building is made from locally sourced timber and the foundations are made up from recycled tyres, making the environment impact low.

Our favourite part is the solar panels on the roof, helping to power the heating alongside a small electric motor. When fully operating, it can provide enough hot water for up to 30 every day, which is definitely an impressive feat.
In the future, they plan on harvesting rainwater to make the showers even more environmentally friendly.

Solar Powered Stadium

We know that solar panels are capable of producing a lot of energy, but enough to power an entire stadium? Surely not.

Toyo Ito proved that theory wrong by designing Taiwan’s dragon-shaped sports arena in 2009. The stadium seats 50,000 people and has an impressive 8,844 solar panels installed to power the lights and two jumbo screens.
It gets better too, with the energy produced on days when the stadium is not in use being fed into the local grid, meeting almost 80% of the nearby area’s energy needs.

This is definitely an incredible use of solar technology; hopefully we shall see more of this in the future.

Keyboards Powered By The Sun

This may not be on the same grand scale as replacing fuel in aircrafts or powering an entire stadium, but is still a great use in it’s own right.

A couple of years ago, PC and mobile accessories maker Logitech produced their very own solar powered keyboard. As you can imagine, the keyboard used the natural light to power itself, therefore eliminating the need for batteries.

Since then, the company have continued to produce different models and work on making them as efficient as possible.
It’s the small things that count, and this is a great example of solar being used in our every day life.

World’s Largest Solar Plant

2016 saw the opening of the world’s largest solar plant, located in the Sahara Desert in Morocco.

Construction is still taking place on the enormous project, with the potential to provide enough energy to power over 1 million homes by 2018. This is a big step in the right direction for showing the power of using renewable technology.

To achieve this, the plant uses crescent-shaped solar mirrors to soak up sunlight and focus light onto steel pipelines. This creates heat, which then produces steam to power turbines, creating the electricity. As you can imagine in the Sahara Desert, there isn’t exactly a lack of sunshine.

The solar plant is split up in 3 sections, with the first second going live in 2016. The other sections will go live as soon as construction is finished, spanning over 6,000 acres in total. With all of these solar mirrors, the plant should be able to generate 580 megawatts of electricity, no easy feat.

A project of this size should be enough to really get the ball rolling as far as renewable technology goes, hopefully initiating a change.

Summary

These are just a couple of amazing and innovative uses of renewable technology. There are some fantastic projects happening all over the world, and we’re just as excited as you to see where the future will take us.